Spring Break Reading Challenge

I often get random wild hair ideas, and I'm just crazy enough to run with them when they hit.  Because I geek out about it, my students will usually go with me, or at least pretend to.

Just before Thanksgiving Break, I happened to stumble upon an old blog post of a teacher friend.  She discussed how she encouraged independent reading by setting a weekend reading challenge.  I read the blog Monday night and by Tuesday morning, I had a plan in place.  With the long weekend coming up, I knew it was the perfect opportunity.

I was so moved by those who did make their goal without realizing they had it in them.  I had one student read an entire book over the long weekend.  She had never done that before and didn't know she was capable of doing so.  That right there was worth the entire activity.

This semester, when we got close to Spring Break, a student I had last semester asked if we got to do the reading challenging again. Of course!  (Inside, I was practically jumping of joy as her eyes lit up.)  She excitedly shared she already knew what she was going to set as her challenge.

My students are familiar with reading goals.  We follow Penny Kittle's reading goal guidelines in Book Love and monitor our reading growth each Monday.  (A great opportunity for me to talk to every single kid in my class, check in on their progress, and celebrate their accomplishments.)

So, with a few added stipulations, we set our reading goals for Spring Break.    The goal has to be somewhat of a challenge - more than their normal weekly reading goals.  They have to commit to the goal before they leave for the day.  If they write it down, they are more likely to commit.  And I will reward them on Monday with some kind of treat.  As I have said many times, when it comes to building reader's lives, I am not above bribery.

I, of course, challenge myself, too - never asking my students to do something I wouldn't.  The subliminal messages from them as I get wrapped up in a game on my iPad instead of reading really work.

Not every kid chose to participate.  I emphasized and reiterated that nothing really happened on Monday if they made a goal and didn't commit.  They would only receive "try again next time" from me.   But, I know I will have some I will get to celebrate on Monday.  And I can't wait.

A side note:  At the top of the white board is a series of stars with each of my classes total reading pages for the quarter.  As a whole, we read over 141,000 pages.  This is one proud teacher.